Armadillo Home

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

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Rush Hour, Chicago


Early evening traffic's
rather heavy.
Autos armadillo home

along the Outer Drive
as out of mouths of buildings
people enter mouths

of anything that moves
wherever every evening
they are going. Tonight

they interrupt the passion
of another person’s day,
the crone astride the hydrant

who once again this evening
bows and swoops and curses
as she burlaps broken glass

gives the finger to nice people
propped in autos staring
as she lets the traffic pass.


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Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.